24 Carrot Gold

Markin tried carrots on Saturday. The orange smile says it all :) She also ate them in her new high chair!

7 months!

7 months! Markin weighs 17 pounds and 1.4 ounces. She is 26 inches long.

Likes: Eating! She especially likes her veggies :) She loves playing (getting these pictures was almost impossible - it took over 70 tries! She discovered that the caterpillar makes noise and just wanted to play with him.) Remotes, phones, the computer, and cameras are also favorite "toys." She also likes playing with her friends at day care.

Dislikes: Having people mess with her hair (and, unfortunately, it's necessary because I'm not ready to cut it yet, so we need to pull it back in a little ponytail on top of her head). Markin also doesn't like it when Mommy leaves the room, making it almost impossible for Mommy to get anything done! (probably time to invest in a ring sling :)

Favorite game: "no no no" -- she loves to shake her head no! She also enjoys dropping things and having Mommy pick them up for her.

New accomplishments: sitting up!

She amazes everyone who sees her with her bright blue eyes, long hair, and happy, contented personality. We went out with friends this week and she was perfectly content being passed around and also amusing herself in her car seat with some toys. I couldn't ask for a more perfect baby. I'm so blessed!

I like to eat, eat, eat . . .

. . . apples (1.24.11) and

bananas (1.21.11)

Well, guess Markin really only likes the apples, not the bananas. She loves applesauce!

Beans, beans . . .

. . . the musical fruit.

The more you eat, the more you toot!

The more you toot, the better you feel.

So let's eat beans at every meal!

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The toots are a little smelly, but the diapers haven't been too bad :)

Squishy Squashy

Time to eat! Can't wait!

Oh, what's this? This doesn't taste like my peas . . .

Okay, I guess I like it! Can I have more?

Peas Porridge Hot

Peas porridge hot

Peas porridge cold

Peas porridge in Markin's tummy

Taste great - I'm sold!

And Mommy is just waiting for that diaper!!!

Tasty . . . I think!

On the advice of Markin's pediatrician, we waited until 6 months to try rice cereal and today is the day! I think it was successful :) It wasn't even too messy, so I know at least a few bites made it in and stayed in.

6 months old!

I can't believe Markin is 6 months old! And it just keeps getting better and better. 6 months is a great age!

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Markin weighs 15 pounds and 11 ounces with a diaper on. She is 25 1/2 inches long.

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Likes: Christmas! She loves the wrapping paper, the presents/new toys, and all of the attention that she got :) She has a lot of new favorite toys - and can figure out how to play with them.

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Dislikes: Falling asleep on her own - someone got a little spoiled during the holidays and thinks she can only fall asleep with mommy feeding her. Hope it's just because we weren't home and were out of our usual bedtime routine and that we can break this habit before she goes back to day care!

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New accomplishments: eating rice cereal and almost sitting up on her own for 2-3 seconds.

Santa came!

Markin must've been a good girl - Santa came! She was really excited and woke up at 6:00 - something she hasn't done in months! Guess she just couldn't wait to see what Santa brought her :)

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Mommy must've been a bad girl - no presents from Santa for her AND he brought noisy toys for Markin! Guess she'll have to try harder to be good in 2011!

Christmas Eve

This is Markin's first Christmas Eve. So much fun! She's not too interested in the tree, but loves the presents (mainly the wrapping paper). She's a little too young to enjoy our tradition of eating nibblies and playing a game (maybe next year), but it was still a very fun night!

Where's Markin?

Oh, no! G'ma lost the baby :)

Hair!

Too much hair!

When does the shedding stop? It started around the time Markin turned 3 months old and hasn't stopped or slowed down. Everytime I wash it, it falls out by the handful (5+ hand fulls) and I clog the drain. Then more comes out when I brush it! I have plenty of hair, so I'm not worried about being bald (like a friend of mine was after her last kiddo - it never did grow back in that spot), I'm just tired of having hair everywhere. Poor little Markin seems to be covered in it and actually got it wrapped around her fingers and it cut off the circulation. Now, whenever she cries, that's one of the first things I check.


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And Markin's hair - can't believe how long it is. It makes her look a lot older than she is. This picture is just for Jen78 :) Yes, this is not a trick - Markin's hair goes a few inches down her back. It's actually long enough that I could braid it if I wanted to - but who has the time? I barely have time to get it out of her eyes in the morning. Might be time for baby's first haircut soon :)

5 months

Time is just flying by! Markin is already 5 months old. She's full of smiles, loves playing, and is a little chatter box! Despite the pictures above, she's a very happy little girl and full of smiles (I took these around bedtime, as you can tell by the thumb sucking :)

She's 15 pounds and 1 ounce (with a diaper), and 23 and 3/4 inches long.

Likes: Markin's favorite toys lately are still anything that hangs down, such as the floor gym, toys that are attached to her car seat handle, or ones that hang down from bars on the exersaucer. She also loves her crinkly kitty still. She's also getting into story time and likes to "help" me turn the pages of the books. She's really into exploring things with her hands and is working on hand-eye and hand-foot coordination. Favorite game is still "pat-a-cake" with her feet, of course.

Dislikes: being "gassy" (she cried for a half hour tonight because of that - then we got some big burps and all was better)

New accomplishments: Markin can sit up in a bumbo seat now! Also, she's starting to put her arms up for me to pick her up when she sees me. Wow - just when I thought it can't get any better, it does :)

Baby's first Black Friday

Well, Markin and I scored some good deals, even if we didn't get started until 10:00. She was an excellent little shopper - full of smiles and flirted with everyone who stopped to tell her hello. She even put off her next meal by over an hour and let me get one more store in! As a reward, she picked out a new toy - her first baby doll. Everytime she saw it, she'd start smiling and laughing and I couldn't convince her the doll I liked was a better choice, so of course we got the one she likes.

Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving! I have so much to be thankful for this year -mainly one healthy, happy baby girl :) Being a mother to such a wonderful little girl is the best thing in the world and I'm so thankful that things worked out the way they did so that she's part of my life. Just love her so much!

We had a very nice, low-key day. Our family is in Florida, so we hung out with friends who are practically family. Markin slept in until 8:30, then we went shopping (had to get the newspaper so we could see all of the deals we're going to miss out on for Black Friday since I have no desire to risk having something happen to Markin over saving a few dollars - we'll get any "left over" deals that happen later in the day). After her next meal, we went to our friends' house and had dinner - and they had lots of vegetarian options for me to choose from (more than my family provides for me!) Now we're home and just hanging out, trying to get warm - I am NOT ready for this cold weather and am very jealous of the warm temps our family is having in Florida.

Baptism

Markin was baptised today. I decided to get her baptized in my grandparents' church on my grandpa's birthday :) (I lost my grandparents 2 years ago - very unexpectedly. I was really close to them, which is why Markin is named after them.) She's wearing a dress that my mom made for her, with mother-of-pearl buttons from a dress my grandma wore when she was little. My sister tatted the pink lace and flowers to add to it. Rachael gave her the adorable bonnet made from a handkerchief for her to use on her wedding day (will post the poem later). I bought her a nice cross necklace to wear now and on other special occasions, such as her confirmation. What a special day, surrounded by friends and family.

Baby's first BOO!

Happy Halloween!

4 months old

Markin is 4 months old today. Time is flying by so fast! She weighs 13 pounds 7 ounces and is 23 1/2 inches long.

Likes: Her thumb, of course. Playing - with her hands, her toys (kitty cat crinkly toy from her newborn pics is a favorite lately), stuffed animals that she can chew on, her floor gym and bouncy seat, and she loves things that play music. She likes story time and telling stories (a.k.a. "talking"). She also enjoys stroller rides and cuddling.

Dislikes: empty bottles

New accomplishments: Blowing bubbles - so cute! Markin also sticks out her tongue after I do and when I ask "Where's Markin's tongue?" She's also getting really good at hand-eye and foot-eye coordination. Also - she grabbed her feet for the first time last weekend and now she won't stop grabbing them. Adorable!

Making mommy feel loved: When I picked her up at day care tonight, she was playing with the floor gym. I went over, said hi but decided to let her play while I gathered her empty bottles and other things. All of a sudden she started crying! Danielle (her "teacher") was shocked because Markin NEVER cries - but nothing was wrong. I went over to her and all of a sudden she gets a huge grin on her face. She just wanted me to stay with her and was afraid I was leaving her again :) While I love that she was happy to see me, I hope she doesn't get upset when I leave her in the morning because then I'd have a miserable day worrying about her being unhappy all day.

Out of room!

Well, they say that baby's things take up more room than you expect - and they certainly do! In addition to our house overflowing with all of the baby gear (there's a narrow path through the living room between the swing, bouncy seat, floor gym, bumbo, boppy pillow and all of the toys), the freezer is also overflowing with breast milk. After Markin was born, I bought a small upright freezer to store breast milk and food - while small, it should've met the needs of a family of 5 according to the suggested guidelines of how much space you should need. When I first bought it, I was so excited to have extra freezer space that I bought lots of veggies, several frozen pizzas, and 2 kinds of ice cream (things I usually bought 1-at-a-time or not at all with my limited freezer space) and it was still pretty bare in there, even with the frozen meals my mom made me since she knew that I wouldn't have time to cook for myself with a baby. Well, for the past month, I've been trying to get rid of all of that extra food, along with trying every way possible to rearrange in there to get as much milk stored as possible. Well, the food is out of there and it's still overflowing with Markin's milk. I put 155 ounces in there from this past week but Markin ate less than 5o ounces from the freezer during that same time span. I know this is a good problem to have, but HELP! I've been looking on craigslist for a cheap freezer, but not finding much. Don't want anything too expensive and only plan to use it for more 6 months or so (I want to get her through cold and flu season - hoping my supply holds out that long :), but since a can of formula costs around $25, getting a used one will pay for itself, right? If you have a cheap freezer for sale - let me know!

A lifetime ago

It's so hard to believe that my entire life changed for the better exactly one year ago today, even if I didn't know it at the time. I had my egg retrieval and Markin was conceived on this day a year ago.